Well, hello strangers. It's been awhile but here I am barely meeting my editor's deadline of one post a month. The last time I wrote we were playing in the spring snow. A lot of things have happened since then. Our beach vacation being just one of them...
There's always a lot of advice going around on the internet. One that I've read lately said, "maybe you should set up a life that you don't need to escape from." That sounds all fine and dandy but I'm going to argue that you can set yourself up a very lovely life but taking a break from it to have new experiences is a big part of that sustaining that lovely life. I'm also going to assume that whoever it was dispensing that advice has never endured a Canadian winter!
So we hit the Mexican beach for ten glorious, sun filled days with family and friends. And yes, it was awesome, in case you were wondering! I'm always glad that I have my photos to look at as proof of our great adventures because when you get back home and back to the lovely life that you have set up, sometimes the vacation feels like it was all a dream. You can actually start to question yourself as to whether it actually happened when you're knee deep in laundry or negotiating piano practice for the millionth time. But atlas, I look back at my proof. All the happy, smiling, relaxed faces in my vacation photos and I look down at my dry, peeling sunburned skin and I can conclude that yes it did really happen!
One of the great adventures the girls had was zip-lining. This has been on their bucket list for a while. I'm not sure if a six and nine year old can technically have a bucket list or not but if they can, zip-lining was on it since their early days when they used to watch Dora and Diego and more recently from watching the Kate plus Eight kids experience it. Our hotel had the perfect little intro to zip-lining kinda zip-line. The girls were brave and I think they may be ready to try some more thrilling zip lines the next time we take a vacation from our lovely life.
In addition to zip-lining adventures, we also had a pirate ship adventure and Mexican market adventures. If we had never taken this escape from our lovey, daily life, Callie may never have experienced what it was like to try a new hair style. That's right. My girl was super adventurous and had her hair partially braided by the ladies at the Mexican market. This is the first time in many years that we have seen her without her standard two hair ponies. Amazing things can happen on vacation!
Our adventure to the local zoo was definitely an experience! Remember that we live with a girl who loves reptiles. Well that girl was smiling ear to ear as we walked among the crocodiles and held snakes around our necks.
I asked Lexi if she liked holding the snakes and crocodiles and she happily replied, "no, not really. I liked the deer and the monkeys the best." I guess little sister prefers her animals to have a bit of fur.
We all walked along this little path past thirty or so living, breathing crocodiles. It was one of those moments when after we were done we questioned, "did we actually just let our children walk next to thirty real, live crocodiles?" The answer was, "yes we did!" We all nervously laughed at ourselves as we made up newspaper headlines such as, Six Year Old Eaten by Crocodile Due to Stupid Parents! Fortunately for us, only Jon was semi-attacked by a crocodile. And by attacked I mean after we were safely out of the croc pit, a croc that Jon wasn't aware of moved and rustled some leaves beside him and nearly caused him to have a heart attack. He survived the semi-attack but he may have had to throw his underwear out! Just Sayin.
I have to say though, the best thing about going on vacation was getting to hang out with our family and friends for ten straight days. Because although we all in the same town, the lovely lives that we have set up for ourselves can get busy. Sometimes you just need to carve out some time far away from your lovely life to narrow your focus onto life's most important things... your family and your friends and making memories.
Easter dinner, endless slushie drinks, building sandcastles, collecting sea shells, hours of pool fun and beach selfies. All these things are better with family and friends. And they were all a part of our lovely lives that we have set up...if only for ten days.
We have been back from our escape for a month now and many things have been happening in our lovely, daily lives. I will try my best to get caught up here in blog world. No promises though. I don't actually have an editor so I don't think I can get fired for my lack of blogging:)
Till next time.
